The amount of money in your bank account is absolutely and totally irrelevant. Everyone should have the ability to die with dignity and the level of personal and physical comfort they enjoyed in life, at a minimum. The fact that that doesn't happen is the true crime. Money and values are irrelevant at the end of our lives; being in a good place is what matters.

uh, dipshit chuckles, i assume that a lot of people, even retirees, aren't exactly expecting to die when they do. so yes, it would be good to have a lot of money in the bank in the event that you DON'T DIE. it would also be nice to leave some scratch for your loved ones.

@3
Marxists have no "loved" ones.

Some of that might have to do with Medicare.

You have to exhaust your savings before they will give you money for things like in home care.

So people transfer money to irrevocable trusts, gifts to children and so on.

chuck, please move to l.a.

Die broke. 100% estate tax (with deduction for dependent children).

Good Morning Charles,
I agree with @1. The amount of money is irrelevant. One should not encourage MORE debt upon departing this natural world. Debt, especially large doesn't just go away upon one's demise. It's transferred one way or another. Sometimes, loved ones are burdened with it. And, they didn't even incur it. That's just not fair.

Sometimes, loved ones are burdened with it.

How so?

mlerrhhggg

Dying with savings is like a government surplus: it's a sign you forgot to spend your money on something.

Fuck those ungrateful kids of yours!

@9 I'm curious about that too. That's not generally how it works, unless you explicitly expose yourself to it.

I think you are alone on this one, Charles. @1 @1 @1.

Plus just about everyone else posting here. Except the rude ones.

@5: You're dead wrong. Medicare pays for extensive home health care where necessary, from skilled nursing to home-health aides who can assist you with bathing, dressing, cooking, etc. The whole point is to keep you out of a nursing home, but Medicare will also pay for short nursing-home stays that follow a qualifying hospitalization and are primarily rehabilitative in nature.

Yes, you do have to spend down your assets before you can qualify for Medicaid, but that will then pay for end-of-life nursing-home stays.

No, you can't hide or give away your assets without incurring clawbacks or enforced waiting periods before eligibility.

Charles, shut the fuck up. Don't give the baby boomers any ideas. Before you know it debt slavery will be back in business.

@3's right. Considering that the average lifespan now goes into the 80s, if someone dies by accident when they're 67 with only $10K in the bank, that means that if they'd lived longer, they would have run out of money way before the end of their life. Social Security pays an average of $900/month and it's pretty hard to live on that.

@9 & 12,
I don't have an answer per se. I did say "sometimes". But, weren't the children and spouse of Bernie Madoff financially affected by his scam? Wasn't there a debt too?

My disagreement with Charles is merely to be financially responsible up until death if one can be. Not the other way around. I agree with @ 1 & 9. It is far more important to die with dignity than with cash or whatever is in one's bank account.

@16, the government stopped sending us annual updates a few years ago to save on paper and postage, but everyone can find out their estimated Social Security benefit at retirement in about two minutes flat, by starting here.

It's a good idea to keep tabs on it annually, same as requesting our annual free copies of credit reports from the Big 3.

What does, Chuckie, the Zimbabwean mountain man know about money? (Other than what his father, and Mugabe, his father's employer, taught him about stealing it.)

@17 Madoff is still alive so yes his family was effected by his scam because in general you aren't allowed to profit from crimes, even indirectly). That has absolutely nothing to do with whether debts survive your death (they generally don't) because we're talking about debts related to a crime and he is in prison not dead.

Charles, let's say this same half did die with 100K in debt instead of 10K in the bank. What about their better halfs? Most older folks are married. If one dies with 100K in debt the other has to live with the consequence of that.